VANCOUVER— There are fading images of a crease crusader twice hoisting the Stanley Cup and even a Conn Smythe Trophy.

Bill Ranford knows his personal highlight vault can do a lot of the talking if the Los Angeles Kings travel a long way down the NHL playoff road — maybe further than anybody anticipated.

For Jonathan Quick and Jonathan Bernier, it might be hard to relate to those Ranford reels on Betamax but not to the wisdom of their goaltending coach who won NHL championships in 1988 and 1990. That never gets old.

“I’ve got the ammunition,” chuckled Ranford. “I played in the minors and behind great guys. I’ve been a No. 1 and won the Conn Smythe Trophy and didn’t start the next year in the playoffs. I can tell them how that makes you feel. And in certain situations, no matter how well you play, you just don’t have the guns to win it all.

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“It’s just the reality of the position and you can only control what you can control. That’s my mission statement.”

Quick looks like he’s on a mission this season. After posting a league-leading 10 shutouts, second-best goals-against average of 1.95 and being ranked fifth in save percentage at .929 to place him in the Vezina Trophy conversation, he has backed it up with 24 and 46-save performances to stake the Kings to a stunning 2-0 lead in the Western Conference quarter-final series against the Vancouver Canucks that continues Sunday at the Staples Center.

As advertised, the agile Quick has been difficult to beat low with his hybrid butterfly style and cat-like quickness from post to post. He sucks up pucks and doesn’t cough up rebounds and was at his best when he needed to be Friday in a 4-2 triumph.

Aside from superb special-teams play — two short-handed goals by Dustin Brown and a power-play effort by Jarret Stoll — the Canucks were better at even strength. But aside from a Jannik Hansen deflection and a late Sammy Pahlsson goal on a Keith Ballard point shot that stuck the glove of Kings forward Mike Richards and had Quick nearly getting across in time to stop the shot, Quick’s becoming the central figure in what could be a huge upset of the Presidents’ Trophy winners.

With the Kings holding a 2-1 lead in the second period of Game 2, he cooly stopped Ryan Kesler after the centre had worked his way to the crease around Rob Scuderi and Drew Doughty and had a clear shot. And as much as Ranford will ramble on about Quick, his student has become a calm and quiet leader of a club that had the 29th-ranked offence but second-ranked defence this season.

“I already took my couple of minutes to be happy,” Quick said Friday. “Now it’s all about Sunday.”

Quick relies on a strong relationship with Ranford, who joined the organization six years ago and will become its full-time goalie coach next season. His play speaks of evolving from a nervous starter in the 2010 playoffs against the Canucks to a consistent last line of defence. Getting married and becoming a father have helped the 26-year-old find balance and keep the top job ahead of 2006 first-round pick Bernier. So has Ranford.

“It’s great to have somebody who’s been through it all and somebody who has experienced what we’re going to go through,” said Quick, a third-round pick in the 2005 entry draft. “He (Ranford) knows the game well and helped me with all aspects of the game.”

The opposition purposely shoots high on Quick because the rationale is that if he’s so good down low, something has to give up top — especially if he over-commits from post to post and is low to the ice. Athleticism is a great asset but it has to be a controlled aggressiveness.

“When I had him coming out of college and in the minors, he was never in position to make the second save when he went athletic,” said Ranford. “We worked hard to make sure his hands were still available and to be able to react and the growth he’s shown in that has been incredible. You can’t teach that type of athleticism. He was very raw from the technical standpoint early on. When you make an athletic save, you’ve got to make the second save and that’s something we’ve really worked hard on.”

Maybe Brown put it best about Quick.

“He’s not just our best player, he’s our most consistent,” said the Kings’ captain. “The quiet confidence filters down to the rest of the players. It’s huge.”